Evelyn Rosetta's Past (3)
The easiest way to avoid the original story was to stay as far from its cast as possible.
Live like an extra. Nothing more.
As a duke’s daughter I could never cut every thread, but wherever I could slip free of them, I would. I believed that completely.
That belief began to crack the moment I saw the western report with the name Liana Bell written on it. I already knew she had spent her childhood in the west. I simply had never cared enough to look closer. In the original she was already grown; her early years were little more than a footnote. Yet the Temple had already stretched its hand toward her hometown—Lumen Village.
And that was near the end of my first winter in Rosetta.
“Lumen Village, my lord.”
In Edrick’s study a knight unrolled a map. A tiny settlement at the western edge—mentioned in the original only as Liana Bell’s birthplace.
My eyes locked on the name of their own accord.
“Temple pilgrimage parties have been visiting often. Officially for free treatment and relief. In truth they’re combing tax ledgers and birth records.”
Edrick’s voice dropped low.
“…Hunting for a Saintess candidate?”
The knight bowed his head.
“That seems the most likely explanation.”
The Temple would never dig through birth registers without reason. My fists clenched.
In the original, Liana was discovered as a Saintess candidate at sixteen. A commoner girl who happened to work a miracle of healing; the Temple whisked her to the capital. A year later she met the crown prince and debuted at the White Rose Banquet.
But I was still only ten.
Far too early.
I turned the thought over again and again. Had my presence accelerated the plot? Or had the original deliberately erased the years she actually lived? The novel only ever lit up the moment she became the Saintess. The poverty before that, the sick mother, the way the Temple found her and taught her obedience—those things barely filled a few lines.
Because a heroine’s suffering only needs to hurt the reader just enough.
That was how I had read it back then.
Poor Liana. But the crown prince will save her, right?
I had flipped the page with nothing more than that.
The report in my hands now was different. The numbers and place-names on the paper were someone’s day, someone’s medicine bill, the record of someone’s child vanishing.
What I had called the original story might have been nothing more than a neatly edited summary of someone else’s pain.
Had I changed something? Or had the original been a lie from the start?
“Evelyn.”
Edrick called my name. I lifted my head.
“Yes, Father.”
“You’re interested in Lumen Village?”
He was reading my face. I could not hide it. I had thought I had, but against him it was useless.
Sword Masters are terrifying.
I stayed silent a moment. Speak Liana Bell’s name and I would draw suspicion. Say nothing and the Temple would move first. Once they took her it would be too late.
“If the Temple is searching for someone in the west, Rosetta needs to know.”
Because the west belonged to Rosetta.
Edrick nodded.
“True enough.”
“I’ll go myself.”
The air in the study froze. The knight’s eyes lifted; Noah coughed quietly behind me. Edrick’s expression did not change.
“Reason.”
“I need to see it with my own eyes.”
“You’re only ten.”
“You yourself said the west does not wait for children.”
His gaze deepened a fraction. A brief silence. He was testing me. I did not look away. In Rosetta, permission was not demanded—it was proven.
At last Edrick spoke.
“Noah goes with you. Ten escorts. Official purpose: investigation of illegal taxation. Do not clash directly with the Temple.”
“Yes.”
“And Evelyn.”
I stopped.
He added, voice low,
“Whatever you are hiding, do not put Rosetta in danger.”
I bowed my head.
“I won’t.”
It was not a lie. Of course I had not told him everything either. Still, Edrick simply nodded and let it pass.
I really can’t hate this man.
The road to Lumen Village lay buried under snow. Black trees slid past the carriage window. I stared at the landscape without really seeing it. Winter in the west was nothing like winter in the capital. No romantic snowflakes—only wind that sliced skin and snow that shackled ankles.
Noah sat opposite, stealing glances at my face. When I finally let out a small sigh, he flinched.
“If you’ve got something to say, say it.”
“Young miss is strange sometimes.”
“I’ve been hearing that for years.”
“What’s in Lumen Village?”
I looked out the window.
“People.”
“There are people everywhere.”
“Then why would the Temple drag holy knights all the way out here to dig through the place?”
Noah shut his mouth.
By the time the carriage reached the village the sun was already sinking. Lumen was small and poor. Thick snow crowned every roof; smoke hung low in the alleys. People bowed when they saw the Rosetta crest, but their eyes held more wariness than relief.
Villages the Temple had visited first always looked like that—helped, yet indebted.
I adjusted my gloves and stepped down.
“Fetch the village head.”
Noah moved. I turned toward the little church in the square. Peeling white walls, a golden emblem gleaming above the door. Even in a destitute village the Temple made sure its own mark shone.
And on the steps sat a child. At first I took her for just another village girl. A threadbare cloak, a basket of herbs clutched in her arms. Her fingertips were cracked raw from the cold; she knelt before the church door, staring at it.
“Please.”
A tiny voice.
“I’ll pay for the medicine later, I swear. Mother’s been coughing all night.”
The priest looked down as if the sight bored him.
“The church is not a debt collector. We’ve already given your mother medicine three times.”
“Just this once.”
“Miracles are not free.”
The child bowed her head lower.
In that moment the wind lifted her cloak. White hair scattered across the snow.
I stopped cold.
Liana Bell.
The original’s main heroine. Not yet a Saintess, not yet loved by any crown prince—only a little girl on her knees in the snow, trying to keep her sick mother alive.
Still only ten years old.
Looking at the scene I understood: staying uninvolved was far crueler than I had imagined.
The priest moved to shut the door. I stepped forward.
“Don’t close that door.”
My voice came out cold. The priest glanced at me with an expression that said what now, then froze the instant he saw the Rosetta crest.
“My lady.”
I looked down at Liana from the foot of the steps. Her blue eyes lifted to mine—slightly clouded from cold and hunger, yet strangely clear.
“Those hands.”
She flinched.
“They’re unsightly.”
I pulled off one glove and tossed it. It landed on her knees.
“Put it on.”
She blinked. The priest stammered,
“My lady, this child—”
“Be quiet.”
I fixed him with a stare.
“Since when has it been custom in Rosetta territory for the Temple to make children kneel in the snow over medicine money?”
His face went white.
“That was never our intention.”
“Then bring the medicine.”
“But—”
Behind me the escort knights quietly rested hands on their sword hilts; a faint killing intent brushed the air. They looked mildly pissed. A mere priest daring to ignore the Rosetta heir on Rosetta land—any cleric with half a brain would know what that meant. Though anyone who made a child kneel probably lacked that half.
The priest said nothing more, face ashen. Liana still held the glove, neither putting it on nor returning it.
I tried not to look at her. Then the child spoke, very small.
“Thank you.”
Her voice trembled. I did not answer. The plan to stay clear of the original had shattered right there in the snow. Liana carefully pulled on the glove. It was far too big; her fingertips did not reach the ends. The sight stayed with me longer than it should have.
I should have turned around then. If I had been truly clever I would have thrown the medicine at them and left—claimed the credit for correcting Temple overreach and never gone near the child named Liana Bell again.
But my feet would not move. The small knee-prints left in the snow kept catching my eye. The door the priest had tried to close, the white hair bowed before it, the voice that said thank you first even after receiving the medicine.
Only then did I admit it.
Liana Bell was no longer the main heroine in a book. She was simply a child whose hands had frozen in the snow. And I was not yet broken enough to walk past her and pretend I had not seen. Was I glad of that? Or simply glad to have met the original’s heroine? It no longer mattered. The fact itself was what moved me.
I looked at her again.
“Kid.”
“…Yes?”
“Where’s your house?”
Liana clenched the gloved hand tight and answered in a tiny voice.
“At the end of that alley.”
It was only directions. Yet somehow, in that moment, I knew I had taken one more step onto a road I could never walk back from.